Are Mozilla and DuckDuckGo Tracking Users?

Question

Browsers

This observation has taken place. I used Firefox in the virtual machine, as the default search DuckDuckGo. Both companies are known to proudly beat their chests and scream about privacy and unacceptable user tracking for marketing purposes.
So. I used an ssh tunnel, with an exit somewhere in Texas, the regional Internet provider Sudden Link. Imagine my surprise when I sent a word to the search, and Firefox automatically redirected me to the Sudden Link search page.
Is there an explanation for this? Maybe it's just that Sudden Link itself burns the traffic of its users and palms off its search to them when searching for queries?

Answer 1

You are paranoid sir!